Visa Stablecoin Settlement Hits $20BN – Up 15X

[0:01] [music] I personally still think in the UK they'll regulate it as gambling because as you say of the history of regulation, but also I'm not totally sure that the FCA would want to take [music] all of that in under their regulatory umbrella when they're just about to roll out their new crypto regime. I had to VPN and show her that this is an exchange that I've regularly used and loads of customers in the UK have regularly used for the last like 20 years. And her mouth was like gaping. She could not believe that this is a platform that UK
[0:34] customers and European customers have been using for a long time. And not only that, it does $200 billion of volume a year. You know, I believe in 10 years we'll have the solution across 200 countries. I'm not a stable coin zealot in thinking that these slows can work better in 100 plus countries yet. There's not enough liquidity in [music] many of these markets. There's not enough regulatory clarity. But we're in 50 plus and that's growing in America. It's actually [music] it's probably a good thing that this is all like trending towards dollar denominated. Like I'm happy about that. I think it's a great you know tool [music] for soft power for the country. Um you know makes the dollar more important around the
[1:05] world. Um so I can see why other places would be concerned about it but for us like dollar back stable coins is a great thing. Welcome to Tokeniz, the show focused on stable coins and the institutional adoption of tokenized real world [music] assets. My name is Pep Bisha, MD and co-creator of Tokenized, stepping in for Simon Taylor, who is abroad, but the British [music] accent stays the same. And also no Kai today. Uh, and we do understand the intense irony of recording episode 100 of
[1:35] Tokeniz without either of our hosts, but we're going to do the Moneyball thing of replacing them in aggregate. So stepping in today is the returning and wonderful guest co-host for today, Elise Susi Watts, former regulator, policy and regulatory specialist and friend of the podcast. How are you, Elise? >> Hi everyone. So great to be back and I'm very honored to be filling in for Kai in this episode. Uh especially as episode 100. I am joining from my maternity leave, so that's why I haven't been around as much lately. Um, but super
[2:06] excited to rejoin as there's been so much going on in the digital assets world. So, thanks for having me back. >> Thanks for joining. And joining us this week, making their debut, Sirill Matthew, co-founder and CEO of Latitude. How are you, man? >> I'm good. Thanks for having me on. I I've known Kai and Simon for six plus years. So, I'm I'm refreshed to speak to new people on this version of the podcast. >> Sick of those guys. Sick of those guys. And we do have a returning guest, Matt Marcus, co-founder and CEO at Modern
[2:36] Treasury. How are you, Matt? >> Doing well. It's good to see you, Pat. Last time we hung out, you're eating a tomahawk steak. So, >> indeed, I was a different scene this time, but happy to be here. >> Uh, before we get into the show, a couple of quick bits. I need to remind you that the views or opinions of our contributors today are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the companies they represent. Nothing we say should be taken as tax, financial, investment, or legal advice. Do your own research. Also, I'm happy to remind you that this podcast is sponsored by Fireblocks. Fireblocks is the stablecoin
[3:08] infrastructure of choice for global businesses from Visa to Walpay to Bridge to Revolute. With over a hundred billion dollars in monthly stable coin volume, Fireblocks, powers stable coin strategies at scale with infrastructure that enables PSPs, fintexs, remitters, and banks to issue, move, hold, and manage stable coins. It's all done securely at scale with secure built-in compliance. With Fireblocks, you get complete control to build your own
[3:38] stable coin orchestration layer, create payment accounts, manage liquidity, and access on and off ramps in over 60 currencies. Makes it easier for you to build and scale and expand your business globally. Learn more at fireblocks.com. All right, over to story one. uh company called Modern Treasury launches non-custodial stable coin wallets, pairing them with global USD accounts and fiat money movement in one API in
[4:08] early access across the US and 90 plus countries. Uh Matt, I do assignment here and read the story out, but since you're here in the virtual flesh, tell us more about this story. >> Yeah. Uh so I'm the co-founder and CEO of Modern Treasury. Uh we're a global payments platform and we announced yesterday that we rolled out non-custodial stablecoin wallets as part of the platform. So bigger picture we have this global money movement platform. We work with like fintexs and marketplaces and business who businesses who are looking to you know move money
[4:39] around the world. Um sometimes they just move money within the US sometimes it's across borders. we rolled out the you know the ability to uh create these non-custodial stablecoin wallets for our our customers and ultimately for our customers and users as part of modern treasury. One of the things we have is this you know consolidated ledger that works across both fiat and stable coin. So means basically you can use fiat and stable coin through one platform in an easy way. Um and we work with platforms like uh Morse as an example used to be called Sling Money to help them offer
[5:10] the you know payments and accounts to their end users. And so we can help them, for example, take money uh that sits in stable coin, convert it to fiat and make an a payout in the US over fiat payment rail. So like an RTP or Fed now payment or an AC. Um and so you the non-custodial offering complements the custodial one that we we've had in market for uh you know since around February. Uh so really our customers can pick between the two depending on you know what works better for their business model. Uh so we're excited about that. Um, it's an early access at
[5:40] the moment and rolled out with folks like Morse at the moment. >> Elise, what are your thoughts on this one? >> I mean, first of all, like huge congrats. It's it's a huge milestone and I think that there's definitely like a clear demand for it obviously. Um, I also have followed along with what Sling Money has been doing uh for years and and that those guys as well. So, I think it's really cool to see all of this sort of coming together. I guess maybe a question from my side like is there a default stable coin that you guys are seeing in your ecosystem yet or is it a
[6:10] bit more agnostic? How is that developing? >> Our view is you know we're infrastructure for payments. We're not you know maximalists on a certain stable coin. I so we you know we support like USDG, USDT, USDC uh and also different chains for that matter. I think my view is that we probably aren't going to have like a ton of really dominant stable coins. there'll be a few that end up you know really like getting the trust required to hit scale you know and I would argue that some of those are already there today um so from as from
[6:40] an infrastructure perspective like we are adding support for more over time as our customers ask for them um but we don't like push our customers towards a specific one or you know incentivize them in some way you know they might have their own incentives that push them towards using you know certain chains as an example but that's not something that we we you know talk about really on our treasury. >> No, and it makes sense because I think in a way the sort of the market will decide and and as you say users will decide what's best for them and that may be diversified based on region or their
[7:10] specific use case as well. But what what do you think Pat? I mean, I I just kind of went back to thinking about a story where someone tried to pay us in in a stable coin, uh, probably about 9 months ago, and, you know, I was like, we'd prefer a bank transfer. And the reason was when I thought about it in my head, I was like, well, we're going to have to be paid into Kraken. I'm going to have to then withdraw that from Kraken. I'm gonna then have to take tell our accountants that this is the payment
[7:41] that needs to be reconciled against this invoice. Um, and you know, in the UK, you could get it sent to your Revolute business account, but we didn't have one set up yet, and then go straight into the dollar and and and keep it in that bank account. I I do think the kind of payouts as a as a as a use case for stable coins is growing at a at a real rate right now, especially in businesses who have those kind of fringe case issues. Like once one customer asks for it, you never know when when another is
[8:12] going to. So you may as well implement some form of solution. I have I have another example. I was I was putting together a a syndicate investment soft plug and uh like I was shocked that probably about 30% of the people in this syndicate wanted to fund via stable coins and the platform were like we're not we're nowhere near touching that and I was like for the next one can we please do that and in the next one they still didn't allow it so I actually just made two or three intros with people who
[8:42] could facilitate a stable coin payin so you you kind of are getting slowly a lot of like demand on the on the the user side, but also from businesses that are trying to accept stable coins uh as a method of payment. I mean, Matt, I I want to double click on, you know, the the the demand from from businesses and clients. Like, what is that looking like and and what type of thing are they using it for? >> Yeah, I mean, I think what you're mentioning there, there's still like a pretty real fear of stable coins from a lot of traditional businesses. And so, you know, we talk with a lot of folks
[9:12] who are frankly nowhere near ready for that. Um, that's not to say that they never will be. It's just where where they are right now. I think where we are in the market, like most folks using stable coins are this like early adopter mindset or they're thinking about innovating in some way. Um, and I think we see like demand from like two pockets broadly. Like pocket one are the platforms like Morse who are building out like net new financial products using stable coins. It's a core part of them. Um, you know, and they're for their users. They're not necessarily putting stable coins front and center. that's just how they you know deliver
[9:43] their products or platforms. The second camp is more other infrastructure and orchestration platforms because when we think about like what's stable coins enable a lot of it is just behind the scenes around how companies manage their own liquidity how they settle with partners um and so you have a lot of uh orchestration payments platforms and other geographies um that you know might be looking to partner with modern treasury as an example because we have strong offerings let's say in the US um one of the other customers we mentioned in in the press release we put out was
[10:13] uh DEPA so you know DEPA is a strong platform uh in Europe and you know we're partnering with them and they're using our our software and our platform uh for access to you know the non-custodial wallet solution the fiat payment rails inside of the US um and so I think like bigger picture there's still a lot of infrastructure that's just being laid out and like us as an you know composable infrastructure provider we can work with those types of platforms and give them great access to US rails that are stitched together with stable coins >> and maybe one more question for me on that that US rails point because I think
[10:44] this is really important and it's something that gets talked about a lot by you know global standard setters and and various geopolitical bodies is that there is obviously like huge demand for dollar denominated savings particularly in like more volatile markets and even sometimes in not volatile markets given that obviously the majority of stable coins that we see today are dollarbacked but of course alongside that you then have dollarization which can have its own impacts um globally So I was just
[11:14] wondering if you had any thoughts on that as you guys have been rolling out. >> Well, so there's two things there. One is like the payment method. So you know we we're connected to the like US fiat payment methods ACRTP push to guard checks checks and you know when we think about that like a lot of these global platforms have users who need to like pay a bill to somebody in the US or you know collect the investment from someone in the US and those go over fiat and then they need to you know on an off ramp into stablecoin. Um the other question like around dollarization you
[11:44] know I think this is an interesting one of like do we think that most stable coin activity will be denominating dollars will we have other you know non-dollar denominated stable coins I'm of the view that I think it'll probably mostly dollar dominated uh I think in order for there to be like deep enough liquidity in these markets it's just going to be difficult to like you know do that if we if we have you know other uh currencies that don't have the same benefits of the dollar. Um definitely some concerns around like sovereignty for some countries like what does it mean for my own uh currency but since
[12:15] this is you know easier to access I think people like figure out a way around they they already have and you know I think like you know for for me or for us like you know in America it's actually it's probably a good thing that this is all like trending towards dollar denominated like I'm happy about that I think it's a great you know tool for soft power for the country um you know makes the dollar more important around the world um so I can see why other places would be concerned about it, but for us uh you know I think that uh like dollar back stable coins is a great thing. >> Yeah, it's a good point and I think that
[12:45] I mean I sit as an American based in the the UK and we have these conversations all the time and I I think that my personal view is that there is like a middle ground to be found where actually if you look at traditional financial markets and how much of that is you know dollar denominated and how much the dollar is used across various markets in FX etc. Obviously, you would expect that to be mimicked in the stable coin ecosystem. However, there probably is a place for local denominated currency stable coins too. Coming back to the
[13:15] sovereignty point for local transactions, for local businesses, not for the crossber piece necessarily. So, I'll be really interested personally to see that how it evolves. It's it's a personal uh watching interest of mine, but I agree at the moment it seems like dollar stable coins are still remaining fairly dominant. So, one to watch for sure. >> If I could um sneak in a followup, Matt, um so I was just curious on the use case here. Do you do you guys see that it's more the latter point you mentioned, which is the payment rails paying
[13:46] vendors in the US versus, oh, I'm in a high volatile currency market and I want it as a savings instrument, which I see more of on social media. >> Stole my question. >> Okay. >> Um we're we're more exposed to the latter, but we're to the infrastructure plumbing side of things. I mean because I I I think in the grand scheme of things like as much as we see around stable coins like we're still in like you know like one out top of the first inning or maybe I shouldn't use a baseball analogy but anyway like you know we like it's it's still super early like and I think that uh like for most
[14:18] like we at Modern Treasury have a history of working with like lots of you know super traditional businesses or just like companies doing B2B payments like Nan as an example. um like you know for companies like that like the the type of plumbing and like what what they need is all still being uh laid out there and so um I think we're really excited about like powering that and supporting those companies that are looking to do that. >> I think this might be a first time for the show where we have two two announcements. This is definitely the most embargoed release I've ever been sent in a week for tokenized. Latitude
[14:48] raises a $35 million series A led by Oak HCFT with NEA, Coinbase, Lightseed Faction, and Open FX to connect stable coins to local payment rails like Pix, UPI, and mobile money. Again, I would read out the entire press release, but Sirill, since we have you here, tell us more about this. It follows 8 million seed from March 2026 and takes your total funding to $43 million. Huge congrats. >> Thank you. Um yeah, it's uh really
[15:18] really humbled to be able to um have the capital to grow. I think taking a step back a little bit of my personal background and Pat, you sort of set it up for me. Um the the the problem you mentioned about getting a stable coin, going to your Kraken account, all of these things. um you know I I I was one of the early leads on um USDC when I was at Coinbase. This is back in 2020 21 and trying to grow that. I went to Stripe soon after to Stripe um still had banned crypto at the time a lot different now uh but I was one of the early uh team
[15:48] members to help launch crypto at Stripe and the first product we had launched there was stable coin payouts. We could only pay out in about 50 countries where we had banking rails. We thought let's do a pilot where we can uh do stable coin payouts to 100 plus countries. Uh in that pilot really no one was using that and and the vast majority of the feedback we got was well what do I do with the USDC and Vietnam or or or Ghana or Colombia or whichever country it may have been in. Um in addition to like what wallet do I download and then oh you go find an exchange to try to
[16:19] offramp. So for me, the light bulb went off is this would be a global payment rail that really helps move in and out and do global payments. You got to solve getting in and out of local currencies um in efficient compliant ways. And so that was one of the sparks. Latitude we we um built uh what our goal is is really to help um stable coins become a global payment real by solving kind of those last mile problems. So that that manifests in two products. One is a global payouts product that a marketplace or a payroll company can use to do payouts in fiat. We're using the
[16:50] stablecoin sandwich, the proverbial term. Um, and the second product is really just a set of on and off ramps. So, I can go from stable coin to Filipino peso, stablecoin to India rupee, stablecoin to Brazilian realale, and you know, maybe it's a partnership we'll talk to Matt about later. [laughter] Uh, but you know, once those those users are holding stable coins for a while, and if it's not a Morris who has some of the rails built, how do they get into those local currencies? That's what we want to enable. And so yeah, we're excited. And the the other thing I'd mention is we felt it was very important to be regulated on day one. And so that's what we we were sort of
[17:21] busy building that over the last year and a half getting our licensing in the US, build a compliance in house because we felt that's really important if an enterprise is going to trust us to help move money. >> Amazing. I mean, you you guys are both at stable, so I'm sure we we could do like the first ever live deal on the show, but I'll let you guys take that behind behind closed doors. Elise, uh, more awesome news. Uh what are your thoughts on this one? >> Well, again, yeah, huge congrats for me as well. This is like such a wonderful industry success story and obviously it is my job always on this podcast to come
[17:52] back to policy and regulation. And so I definitely want to commend you on a couple of regulatory points which is first you know coming out of stealth sort of postgenius act that is like exactly the success story that the industry has kind of been talking about for ages which is that when you have regulatory capital regulatory clarity you can have the capital unlock and then you can have that scalability and so I think that you know for me is first of all huge but also the money transmitter licenses and going and getting all of those statebystate approvals
[18:24] massive well done because like I feel like people think of this as this like really boring infrastructure as you say you've got to go out you have to be compliant you want to be regulatory first but actually doing the work to go out and get all of those individual approvals it takes time it takes patience you have to explain the product you have to work with the regulators and I think it it sometimes seems like the boring thing to do but actually that matters so much in terms of long-term compliance and your regulatory standing and their work with obviously very
[18:56] highly regulated other partners across financial markets. And so I'm personally very pleased to see crypto and digital assets moving a little bit away from the move fast, break things, worry about all the regulation later and instead have like a regulation first trend. So really really want to commend you guys for that and I think that's definitely hopefully reflected in your guys' seed round in terms of that long-term confidence that your investors have had as well. So definitely hats off for me. But um I guess maybe my my next question then is
[19:28] that is there anything next? Do you feel like there's anything missing for you from a regulatory perspective that's needed in the stack to give even more certainty? >> Yeah, I would you know thank you for that and yeah it it also pays off I think for a company as early as us to have the right investors. Even when we raised our seed round which NEA led we told them this was our plan before instead of going to market quickly. We've seen a lot of people ask, well, I've heard like 30 or 40 stable coin orchestration companies. I would argue a lot of them have just built on someone else's rails or on another sponsored
[19:59] bank, got to market quickly, but we don't think that's sustainable. And so, we told our investors getting us close to the battle, owning our own compliance decision being regulated on day one was very important. Um, you know, we have most of our money straight state money transmission licenses. um that what's next with this capital is you know we've this the second part of we think our differentiation is really the global coverage um there's you know there there are stable coin orchestration companies even two that have been recently acquired that are really great but we don't see any that are one regulated themselves two have global coverage we
[20:31] see pockets where there's a lot of latam players Africa players etc but have the global coverage and everyone also says one API more important than one API is one onboarding like the fact that or regulated. We can go get non-resident accounts with banks in Brazil or in in Southeast Asia. And what that means is when you onboard a latitude because we have these reliance relationships with banks, you could do one onboarding. So you're not saying, "Hey, plug into one API, but onboard with 15 partners, then a company's not going to integrate for two years." So we we feel for us using
[21:02] this capital is getting licensed in some of these markets, building out that global network, um, and then really just assembling the best team to kind of do this expansion. So that's that's how we're planning to differentiate and we believe we can really serve enterprises in this way and scale uh beyond just you know your mom and pop shops if that makes sense. >> Maybe one more question for me and then I'll hand it back to you. But I I guess my other question is how are you thinking about like industry fragmentation because if you look at the like traditional crossber payments industry it gets so fragmented
[21:33] particularly across various use cases various regions. Obviously, as you mentioned from the outset, you're trying to solve that. But do you think that we actually have a chance here to kind of do better in this next iteration of financial services and instead, you know, really reduce that fragmentation for the end user? >> Yeah, I do. I mean, I I I would caveat that, you know, I've been in payments for a while and, you know, any there's never a one-sizefits-all in payments. You're always going to have multiple players and I don't think there's ever a winner take all. That being said, I
[22:03] think what stable coins has done is solved uh particularly how to go from one point to the other. You used to have to go through correspondent banks that go through several hops. Now you can go from the US like Matt Mon Treasury just say to a straight to a st non-custodial stable coin wallet to the user in the Philippines. And so what we need to do is solve that fragmentation is patchwork of these last mile off and off ramps. So I think we can improve drastically from companies who built cross borders before stable coins were around. And then when
[22:33] you look at companies that are built in the stable coin era, which still relatively new, I think the biggest piece missing is there's there's still not I've seen a dominant player that provides the last mile across 50 different currencies, right? And and does so in a deeply liquid way um in a way that you have um as close to the metal integrations as possible. And so that that is our focus to kind of minimize fragmentation in that's in that sense. So then again, let's just continue since Matt's on the line. If someone like modern treasury was going
[23:03] to look at um offramps in 40 countries, you don't have to plug into 15 different partners or else you're not going to prioritize it till 28 or 29. Now I'm not saying Latitude will be the only solution that does that, but I think we have a good leg up in terms of trying to solve some of that that fragmentation. If I can ask a question, how are you uh finding for those last mile delivery, you know, the FIS you're looking at in these other countries? What's the readiness like to settle with them in stable coin? >> Yeah, it it varies a lot. This is the actually you you hit one point I forgot to mention is um the companies that have built really good networks pre-stable
[23:34] coins. One of the challenges when I was getting helping to launch Stripe uh crypto at Stripe was our existing bank wouldn't actually support the stable coin flows and so we had to go find a new sponsor bank in the US etc. And so internationally a lot of these companies have built these global networks those same banks aren't yet supporting it. So it is a lot of sort of BD muscle research muscle and say okay which bank first where's there clarity in that given market if it's a Japan a Philippines or Brazil that the banks can do something with space then what bank has built liquidity or built the kind of
[24:05] stable coin native support and then go striking a deal with them. And so I'm also you know I believe in 10 years we'll have the solution across 200 countries. I'm not a stablecoin zealot in thinking that these flows can work better in 100 plus countries yet. There's not enough liquidity in many of these markets. There's not enough regulatory clarity, but we're in 50 plus and that's growing. And so, typically it's either a bank um a local exchange like, you know, bitso in Mexico is an investor of ours. Um or a payment provider that has like the equivalent of an EMI type license uh that are
[24:36] providing these flows for us. And eventually we're going to go get some of those internationally with this new capital as well. Uh but that's sort of the breakdown of glass mile partners which it's still different levels of maturity and and I think that's what the uh industry still needs a bit of maturation on but it's happening quickly >> on on that piece. You you mentioned some of the people on the cap table are helping with that last mile. I'm curious to hear Open FX another really interesting company we we've had we've had the team on the show before. is having that kind of like uh onchain FX partner on the cap table helping a lot
[25:07] with the stable coin sandwich piece as you kind of go for the for the payouts into specific markets. Yeah, the the really interesting thing with open effects a lot of people asked um and it's good to have them at the cap table is they're like oh are you competing with open effects actually you know what we want to do and at least you know I don't want to put words in their mouth but since they've invested in us you know what their goal is to serve customers like us and have 200 these institutional customers that are coming to get liquidity from them and I'll just give you an example today we can go to a last mile provider in Mexico or Philippines that last mile provider
[25:38] would have provided liquidity and the the the the local fiat payout With open FX, what we can do is because their their expertise is in getting liquidity not just onchain from let's say USDC to MX to fiat and the they came from Falcon Falcon X and so they've they've really mastered the market making in these markets and so they can get what may have been a 15 or 20 basis point spread down to two or three. We take advantage of Open FX to get that liquidity but we still use our bank partner for the last mile payout. So we're interfacing with the customer um in the US that's making
[26:09] the payout. Open Effect is interfacing with us to give us the liquidity and then we do that last mile payout. And there's there's others, you know, in the space that does just similar to them. So, we're not, you know, completely only using Open FX for that. And but that's a kind of really good use case where they do what they do best and helping us provide liquidity. We still take care of the regulated last mile delivery. Um, and it really just helps us to compete with traditional finance on kind of the FX race. And on that piece, are you are you picking the stable coin that has the most liquidity dependent on pairs or is
[26:40] it depending on what the consumer wants to receive? >> Great. What the consumer wants to send rather? >> Great question. I think similar to what Matt said with them, we we want to be pretty agnostic on stable coins. There's there's probably two fork a fork that I would mention when it is the use case and which is why I think it's exciting what modern treasuries launched. We've even seen payroll platforms that have said, "Hey, my users actually don't want to go to the last mile. they just want to hold the stable coin in their wallet. And in that case, the consumer will have an opinion on on on the wallet or stable
[27:10] coin they want. >> In the use case of I'm just trying to get the last mile delivery. Typically, our customers have no opinion there. And then it matters what's the most liquid in that market. Um, you know, Tether is sometimes controversial. It happens to actually still be the most liquid in a lot of international markets. USDC has grown a lot to get the liquidity there. Um, Paxus is another investor of ours. working with them to get USDG more liquid. Um, but ultimately we have to, you know, do what's right for the customer and that's typically what's most liquid, but we also have to make sure the right compliance is in place so
[27:40] we can do blockchain analytics, make sure we've done the sanction screening and all of that. So, there are some baseline table stakes on what stable coins we can support, but from there it matters what's the most liquid. >> Fascinating. Fascinating. Well, we'll pause here before we get into part two so Simon can tell you about the sponsors that make tokenize possible. Stable coin operations usually mean a wallet from one vendor, an on-ramp from another, and then your controls are stitched together across both of them. The Visa stable coin platform fixes this handily. You
[28:11] can mint, move, and manage stable coins, access OpenUSD, and remain your own custodian all in one single shared environment. Then, stable coin linked cards let you spend balances anywhere Visa is accepted. And we know stable kind linked cards are in hyperrowth as our good friend Kai likes to say. That is Visa of course the global leader in payments and of course sponsor of this show. You can find out more at visa.com/crypto. This episode is brought to you by Stripe
[28:43] and financial services is still country by country as I've experienced all too well in my career. A license here, a partner bank there, and a different integration in every single market. Meanwhile, your users are everywhere and they expect your product to work globally. Stripe's stable coin and crypto stack lets you launch global financial services on day one. Give users a dollar account they can fund from anywhere, a card they can spend locally, and the ability to earn on
[29:13] balances. One integration for every market. Learn more at stripe.com/crypto. Welcome back. We'll go straight into story three which is a MoneyGram launches the Moneygram card a stablecoin linked Visa card built with Rain Crossman and Stellar live today in Colombia. So I'll read this out for you folks. Customers hold a stable dollar balance in the Moneygram app are able to spend anywhere Visa is accepted add it
[29:43] to mobile wallets or transfer it to themselves and pick up cash at a Moneygram location. Obviously just been discussing that last mile a lot. Rain provides the card infrastructure, cross mint the wallets and seller the network. And Moneygram brings 60 million active customers, 200 plus countries and nearly 500,000 retail locations. [snorts] Colombia is the launch market as it seems to be for for a lot of these uh new stable coin link cards and stable coin products. More countries follow in the coming months and a physical card for ATM withdrawals comes in late 2026.
[30:15] Also very interesting. [snorts] And Rain also opened global payouts to 80 plus countries and 50 currencies heading to 95 countries and 60 currencies by the end of the year. And also this week, Visa says it stable coin settlement has passed $20 billion in annualized run rate and no Kai to tell you that from the horse's mouth, but I will instead. That's up 15x yearonear with 160 plus stablecoin linked car programs live and volume on them up nearly 200%.
[30:48] So I think Kai always has a a saying and the saying he's hammering home right now is stable coin cards are in hyper growth mode. So sir I I'll come to you first actually just discussing that last mile problem. the the kind of moneygram story is super interesting and actually probably the most fascinating piece was their partnership with Paywood where you could you know Kraken's uh parent company where you can actually go and take cash out after like a stable coin remittance which is super fascinating. I mean the kind of refounding of MoneyGram is a is a really interesting uh story to
[31:20] follow um regardless of how successful they they end up being. I'm I'm curious to hear your take considering the kind of payments expertise at so many different countries you've had. Yeah, I think it's really exciting to see MoneyGram. We've seen others like Western Union, but this is Moneygram's day, so I'll highlight them. Just they've been leaned into since I think they they had the partnership with Stellar a few years back. I actually talked to them at prior roles, but it's cool to see this launched because again, similar to the previous story we're talking about, um, not everyone actually wants to immediately get out into low
[31:50] currency as much as I believe that's important. And so I think that the the issuing of these cards is fascinating, but the physical kind of locations that MoneyGram offers is incredibly powerful. Um particularly I think a lot of folks forget just how much in the global south there's so many markets that don't have cards that don't use cards. Um it I was um in in a prior life at Uber trying to help Uber expand into markets in Africa and there were just so many cash dominated markets and so that physical
[32:20] kind of footprint that moneygram grams is real is real powerful. I would say and just you again not speaking for them the difficult part is those aren't necessarily Moneygram employees. So turning them on into how to use these stable coin rails and figure out how to do the off-ramp and getting those agents that are in the Moneygram network to do that um is not necessarily easy. I think that's something that they've been working on for a while. But if they can get that right, it represents a huge opportunity that I think they could p they could power many platforms offramps uh where there aren't cards. So as much as stable coin cards are very hot right
[32:50] now, a lot of markets that's just not going to work. So I think it's very powerful. I would agree with that and I think that this you know the dollarization point does keep coming up like again we have again here holding that sort of stable dollar balance and I I but again there is definitely demand for it especially where you do see jurisdictions with more volatile currencies and I think the other point that's interesting here and you know you mentioned pet that we've seen a lot of these sort of South America focused launches especially in the past year or so you know sometimes when you speak in
[33:22] the sort of G7 7 G20 jurisdictions, there isn't necessarily that product market fit that there is in the global south, a global south that has traditionally been sort of underserved by the financial services industry of past. And so I think that you know there's an interesting intersection here of where you're having this launch from money gram where you already have the active customers you have the demand you're not trying to have this solution that's then retrofitted to a problem which is sometimes I think that what we see you know in even in the UK for
[33:52] example where we already have a pretty sort of seamless payments network you can send money to people very easily with your bank account you know we don't even have Venmo here or anything like that and so I wonder what you guys think in terms of further launches. Do you think that we're going to see more and more of these in locations like Colombia? Um, and also what impact do you think that that's going to have, you know, on the local economy? And to your point that you were making as well with the part local partners that they'll need to find for these offramps. Anybody
[34:22] have any thoughts on that? Well, I have to imagine that every company that is somewhat similar to Moneygram is thinking, you know, seeing this, seeing the Western Union news and thinking, you know, what what are we going to do that that's somewhat similar and they might have different techniques for, you know, last mile delivery, but I would guess that we're going to see a lot more activity like this just in general. um some people will be better and worse at like you know solving problems or building good products but my guess is we're still very early in terms of platforms like this coming out. The
[34:54] question that I talked a little bit about earlier is just what does it take um to have the right partner locally. Um I think the regulatory clarity is a key important point which is why we see in Colombia that you've even seen banks bank of Columbia has their own exchange a subsidiary called and so a market like that is where I think why we see a lot of activity one there's already natural crossber traffic two there's enough clarity for banks to move and so you can create this um ecosystem in that market where you can facilitate this I also think just one more point on the dollar
[35:25] sovereignty we certainly see that in in markets like India and Brazil particularly bricks nations that don't like the dollar denom dollar domination if you will but I I do see commercially when we're speaking to banks they also believe that stable coins making these crossber flows uh much simpler and easier will increase the total opportunity across border volume in that corridor and so that commercial opportunity is very appealing to these banks right um but there's just like again I throwing out another former um
[35:57] stop of mine at Uber u when Uber made ride sharing so much easier. Um, taxi industries 10x or ride sharing the the ability of people to take cars 10xed those markets because you made it so much easier. And so if stable coins make moving money across the border so much easier, if you can imagine that crossber volume 10xing, these banks find that opportunity hard to miss up even though they may not want more dollars in their in their state in their country. And so we've we found that as a reason why banks have been moving in in markets like Colombia. I I wrote in my notes
[36:27] that in the last 18 months, MoneyGram have launched MGUSD. They've launched the stable coin card, cash withdrawals with with Paywood and Kraken, validator on Tempo, and and maybe Stellar. I think uh they use Stellar pretty regularly. I think we had someone from Stellar at a dinner we we hosted in in San Francisco who said that their RWAs have kind of like gone 20 to 40x year on year on on chain. I'm presuming a lot of that is is in part due to stable coins and they're also part of OpenUSD. all in the last 18 months. I guess sir, question for you.
[36:59] Where do you where do you see money's positioning in this from having this kind of huge moat um that is kind of I guess being slowly eroded from loads of different companies in loads of different ways. How do you view their strategy in terms of what they've done for the for the last 18 24 months? >> Um I I think it's refreshing that the the fact that they're leaning in and seeing this technology shift. I think the innovator's dilemma is always the challenge for companies that have played in spaces like this and then see a huge
[37:29] technology shift. It typically doesn't go well for incumbents to move fast and adopt it and so many investing in the space in a while. I would say the challenges are one that I called out earlier, a physical footprint is amazing, but turning that physical footprint and educating that physical footprint into embracing this new technology will be an uphill challenge. Um the other thing if I if I'm strategy for money gram I would throw out there is that they have a chance I believe to be like a B2B player for companies like myself or others and and and how do how
[38:00] do the companies um these new fintex these new companies that are looking to enable crossber trade leverage the money network in a B2B way and so if they can turn on their network in um a fast enough time and then start to monetize on these new opportunities um that's what I would be looking at but um it's not easy when you've been operating one way for a certain amount of time. So I commend them for making these moves. The execution which I is I think the you know the biggest challenge for them which hopefully they're up for.
[38:31] >> Matt, any final thoughts before we move on to our last story? >> I I think it's an interesting point there about the B2B side. You mentioned working with Bitso a little bit earlier and I think about that similarly. you know, they have this large, you know, consumer exchange historically that, you know, they've built great payment rails into Mexico. So, I I'm curious to see if we see like more platforms that have, you know, lots of volume on the consumer side decide to pivot into B2B cuz I think to the earlier we talked about a little bit earlier, a lot of platforms aren't quite ready to, let's say, accept
[39:01] stable coins uh for settlement and, you know, folks like Moneygram if they're building out the other infrastructure, we'll probably be more ready sooner. Um and so I think that'd be that'd be welcome if you know if they're listening or you know other folks that you know to to think about stuff like that. >> Yeah, we've found a lot of consumer exchanges from the 1920 21 vintage now becoming payments companies to enable sorts of >> these sorts of flows. >> I'll move us on to our final story. Uh this is a pretty insane one. Robin Hood
[39:31] takes a minority stake in Crypto.com and its prediction markets arm og.com and starts rooting event contracts through og.com's CFTC regulated exchange starting from the 8th of September. So the stakes aren't disclosed but according to Bloomberg they're priced off Citadel Securities July 2026 investment in Crypto.com which values Crypto.com I think between 15 to20 billion and og.com at $5 billion on its own. Uh Robin Hood now roots event
[40:01] contracts to og.com, Kowi, Forecast X, and Rotherer. Starting with NFL contracts for the season that kicks off this week, plus an election hub for the midterms. Uh prediction markets made Robin Hood $156 million of revenue in Q2 2026, up 10x year, trading 13.6 billion contracts. And it was the first quarter they outearned crypto trading. And this comes in the same week where Robin Hood chain hit $42.6 million in revenue in the 70 days
[40:34] since its first July 2026 mainet launch, which obviously we we covered exclusively on tokenized soft plug. And I mean it's it's pretty wild. Robin Hood chain is now actually outperforming Ethereum in in daily revenue I think this week. Uh, I guess most of it is memecoins disclaimer, but there is still quite a lot of activity with stock tokens, which of course have had their own pretty crazy back and forth Vlad uh being on um pretty much every cable network. And there's been the the AMC
[41:05] drama about like what do you own and uh the legalities around uh what consumers are buying here on the stock token side. I mean, gonna go to you first, Elise, because the acceleration in Robin Hood's growth in like these new verticals is pretty insane. The staying power is obviously a little bit unknown, but they're kind of parlaying two things, which is kind of this this wholly earned chain using the the arbitum stack and then going all in on prediction markets,
[41:35] whilst at the same time a lot of their other verticals are still growing as well. So uh at the one point it's kind of um insane to see the level of execution but also slightly worrisome from your perspective. Well, okay. I don't I don't necess necessarily say worrisome, though obviously whenever these things are happening very quickly, you often do see a regulatory lag. And I do want to caveat that even though I am a policy and regulation enthusiast, it is not always the fault of firms that
[42:06] regulation is lagging behind. And sometimes you do, I think it is important to sort of forge ahead and be innovative and you know, regulation will catch up. It always does. Um, but yes, sometimes there can be some worries as well. The interesting things for me from this, and Pat, I really want to hear your thoughts on the NFL timing, obviously given that you do sporting crypto as well, I'm sure you have loads of thoughts on that, but the timing with the NFL, the midterms, I'm sure loads of people have been following along what's been happening um in Dallas this past
[42:36] week as well in terms of the campaigning. I mean, that timing is huge. And I think that as you say it really shows their intent to kind of roll this out as a core business line. But also the interesting part about prediction markets really you know out earning crypto really show how that is kind of starting to become a core business model not just this sort of fringe thing that I think people used to call it. But from my perspective and I'll say one more thing before I pass it back to you guys. I think that the the the most interesting part on the chain
[43:08] bit and people have focused on this kind of huge volume in meme coins. Well, I think it's important here to think about like as you said what those stocks actually are because they're really they're jerseysued debt securities and then they're approved by the Likenstein FMA under a bit of EU regulation. And so under that, that's technically not something that is available to US customers under US law. And so I haven't
[43:38] seen a breakdown of region in terms of the meme stock distribution, but I think it might be really interesting to see that because is it actually that there's huge demand for meme coins or is it just that these sort of stock tokens are actually not yet available to the kind of Robin Hood core user base? So that's my question. Not necessarily a fear. Um but I do think that that would be my kind of um question mark or on the memecoin heavy volume. I don't know if it is necessarily an indicator that the
[44:09] general populace is all of a sudden like memecoins to the moon and we don't care about anything else. >> There is some crazy things happening on the chain though as well. There's some really weird interesting games that are blending stock tokens and meme coins. there's some and and the the thing is right when you have these permissionless or semi-permissionless infrastructures anything that can happen will happen right and so uh you've even got pumpf fun saying hey like we might launch meme
[44:39] coins on Robin Hood now because there's loads of people trading them right and so I I do think there is a little bit of a risk that you kind of become the next memecoin chain but I think that if Robin Hood are able to parlay that into when they're allowed to in other jurisdictions kind of move consumers through that gamut of like from, you know, buying a random memecoin to uh owning a tokenized stock. Uh I think it could be super
[45:10] successful and and you know, it's already proving to be a very successful revenue line for them. I think on the prediction market side, I think I'm probably like I think they're going to do really well with it short term and maybe even medium-term. I do have questions about like fundamentally this is a brokerage and a brokerage should generate consumers wealth or or try to and like a binary market means that you're unlikely to do that as a regular consumer no matter how good you are at
[45:40] predicting sports or price action or stocks or elections whatever it may be you're most likely going to lose especially in sports where the money is very sharp and so I do worry about the kind of consumer churn there. If you're moving people from buying crypto in spot where they own or stocks that they, you know, own at least a digital receipt that that kind of grants them uh the that stock on the on the underlying like if a consumer then is is ported over to
[46:10] trading meme coins or you know wagering on a sports contract and they lose money that customer experience is completely different and and it kind of talked about this with Coinbase as well, right? Coinbase are going pretty heavy in prediction markets and Coinbase make a lot of money from retail buying crypto on big margins for them uh on like the regular platform. If you're moving that consumer behavior where you buy like a $100 worth of Bitcoin to I'm going to go $100 on yes no on this NFL game that is a totally different consumer experience
[46:41] and I think you're going to have a lot of churn and that short-term revenue might not be that sustaining. I'm I'm curious, sir. So, obviously previously at Coinbase, but in a different for a different um kind of vertical, what you think of this kind of almost crazy headline. Yeah, there's a lot there. Um I the particular part I would comment on um I've as long as I've been in the space and I think I mentioned my story came in through the payments angle. I've sort of sometimes looked down even during the NFT craze as much as you know
[47:12] I felt there was some value there I was always like man this seems a little bit like a bubble. One thing that I've noticed particularly with stable coins is that or or new blockchains is that sometimes you need this experimental activity NFTts, memecoins, etc. to create um usage on the trade to create liquidity on the chain like stable coins forever really just a way to settle Bitcoin and other trades. Um that's how both USDT and USDC grew. And so I've I've come to like not look down as much even if I think memecoins aren't my
[47:42] favorite things in the world is a good way to just almost like discovery on the chain and ways to do things. And I think at least a key part you mentioned and we were actually I'm in um DC for stable con. We were at a regulator dinner last night. um how do we get regulation to move faster such that a really val at least in theory a valuable thing like tokenized equities where much of the world cannot access US equities which is you know one of the most valuable safe ways to invest in the world at least over the last 20 years and the fact that
[48:12] Robin has to go to the Likenstein you know sort of route to offer that that's the part I think I would focus on which is like um consumers are obviously looking for a way to get into these things and so could we provide even a sandbox environment for Robin Hood to do that in the US and really test something that most people I think would agree is valuable is just offering these US US equities to the world and so that's the part I I hope that kind of the industry and regulators would take from all of this interesting activity Matt thoughts on the interesting activity this is
[48:43] definitely not my area of expertise so you guys had a lot more here the only uh tidbit I'll share is just one comment I got from a one of our product managers yesterday told me that a customer asked about adding support for the Robin Hood chain. So, >> uh I just thought I I don't know all the details of it, but I just got that in passing, but at least I chose at least like it's definitely entering the mind space of folks around payments, too. >> And I I guess with with the volumes being kind of uh centered around meme coins right now, those volumes are often
[49:14] super small uh individually and those markets are thin. So if you do have like a big payments push by by anyone, I mean those volumes could absolutely dwarf what is going on there now when it starts to look like a a small uh footprint compared to the rest of of of the activity on the chain. Um but I guess also, you know, same with the prediction market stuff. It's like uh it's it's it's interesting. It's really cool and everyone is waiting for it to be less sports, but every month it gets
[49:46] more sports. And so like I I'd be really interested to see if the same thing happens with Robin Hood chain where memes are kind of like this early adopter as Sirill put it like almost battle testing the infrastructure and if we look at it 18 months down the line is it that like meme coins have gone from 90% to 9% of the activity or have they grown and they're still at 40% even though lots of Matt's customers want to to use it for payments >> and and I think that that's an interesting point about what serial was
[50:16] kind of saying as Well, in terms of the regulation catching up is because you do sometimes have this interesting problem where yes, we want the regulatory clarity for some of these kind of core aspects, stocks, equities, etc. But also, you don't want regulation to come in too quickly in an area that's going to expire or not really have the staying power in the market. And I think that the way we've seen a lot of regulators approach this is that they have in early crypto and digital asset regulation carved out exemptions for DeFi. They've
[50:47] said, "Let's let that bit of the market evolve, see where we get to, and then maybe we'll come back and regulate it later." And or even carved out whole exemptions for it if it can prove to be truly decentralized. And I think that that in my at least is my hope the way that we will see a lot of regulation continue to progress is that where there is a very clearcut financial services activity, a product and offering that kind of matches some of those traditional definitions that maybe we can then apply the regulation quicker,
[51:17] sooner, translate what we had and adjust it for the nuances needed for the digital assets world. But that as you say, maybe we just need to kind of let some of these areas grow. See if they'll become less sport. See if they'll become less memecoin and then bring the regulation in when the market's a little bit more set and settled and also bigger volumes too. >> What do you think other chains if you're in strategy at another chain and you're looking at Robin Hood right now and you see I don't know if you're a Salana and you see someone like Pump. Fun thinking
[51:48] about doing stuff there. if you're a c the Matt's customer who is maybe rooting flows through another chain who is asking for Robin Hood support like what are you thinking right now seeing some of these numbers coming out of Robin Hood uh well if you're just if you're trying to be a general purpose chain I think you have to be paying attention um there's obviously some chains that have come out recently that are trying to be more focused on payments and I think they stay in their lane but uh you know Salana also just shameless plug another another uh investor of ours but early on
[52:19] I There was this debate. I know Shiraz who's had a payments there and MAS some really great people trying to foster payments on Salana. But I think if they try to turn off memecoin activity or NFTTS back in when when those were were larger um I don't believe Salana would be as big as it was. And so I think one good thing Salana has done is built this ecosystem of different segments of the population that want to do different types of activity. And that's the point of a permissionless chain. like a lot of people like I've heard some hunter biteed laptop stuff this past week which we don't need to go into but the point
[52:50] is on a permissionless chain you you can do these things and it's not really you know up to any one person's control and um if you're a general purpose chain you generally want to invite this activity of course within the right compliance and all those reasons that anything nefarious is not going well so that if you're a general purpose chain I think you have to take a look at how to foster innovation and sometimes that innovation leads to things that are a little less frowned upon I think and so that's how I'd be looking at it Um, >> and I did stop you. You were you got to go drop some gold. I'm sure of it to to to end the show. So, please go for it.
[53:21] >> Well, I was just going to ask you a question question back. It's a little bit of a tangent, but um given the sports history and I lived in Europe uh a lot of London for 10 years um where it it was easier to place sports bets for than than it has been in the US. I'm curious how prediction markets if it's changed uh who's using prediction markets versus your traditional sporting venue. exporting betting venues in Europe or if you've seen behavior change there. >> Well, look, in in the UK we have Bet Fair Exchange and Bet Fair Exchange has been a licensed, you know, exchange by
[53:53] the UKGC, the UK Gambling Commission by from for like almost since I've been alive. So, like since the late ' 90s, early early 2000s. So, it is seen as gambling in Europe, right? That is that is kind of pretty clearcut. uh whether you're using an exchange or you're using a sports book like where you're betting against someone or you're betting against the house. I think the US is a little bit more complicated, right? Um and I think this kind of the British mind can't comprehend the kind of federal state uh kind of side by side and uh you know where the tax revenues
[54:25] go is is a big is a big point. Uh probably going to end up in Supreme Court. If you look at a lot of the volumes that are coming out of Koshi and Poly Market US and all these other platforms, some of the biggest states in terms of volume are states that you cannot gamble in. So what does that kind of say? Now, I I do think there is something interesting here where like if you are a uh big bar in New York, like a New York Knicks bar in New York, and
[54:56] they're in the playoffs, and you can hedge them not getting through, because if they don't get through the next round, you've lost up to three to four games worth of revenue for your bar. That's pretty interesting, right? If you're a big vendor for events and you know MSG is not going to be used and you need to hedge that exposure, that is interesting. The annoying and weird thing is like the underlying liquidity is market makers and wage and gamblers, right? And so how do you regulate that?
[55:28] Um I think is going to be super interesting to follow. My gut hunch is you you probably do end up with some form of like statebyst state prediction market tax like you have gambling taxes and the federal oversight is still there but there is you know the states still get their cut. Um but then does that mean that you nationalize this thing and and and and let it go? Um I'm not so sure. And I I think in Europe there is a little bit more of a buttoned up approach, but at least I don't know if you saw the FCA have been kind of
[55:58] coralled by some some of the actors to kind of relook at binary contracts. I wonder why that is. Right. And so you do kind of get into this weird mismatch where if someone wanted to open up shop in the UK, would they be regulated as a a gambling company or would they be regulated by the FCA if the FCA reook at binary options? So, you know, sorry, Elise, you were going to jump on. >> All I was going to say is I personally still think in the UK they'll regulate it as gambling just because, as you say, of the history of regulation. I could be
[56:30] totally wrong. Prepare, prepare to color me shocked, but also I'm not totally sure that the FCA would want to take all of that in under their regulatory umbrella when they're just about to roll out their new crypto regime. So, I'll leave it there, but personally, I think it landed gambling in the UK. So, yeah, different story in Europe. I I have a one story that I'll finish on is um I was speaking to a US VC uh during Fintech NerdCon last year. Plug November this again for those that will come to San Diego this year, not Miami.
[57:01] They're super sharp, way smarter than me. And they were telling me what they think about prediction markets, how they think they're going to be truth seeeking oracles and the future of X and Y and Zed. And I was like, but the the the volume is mostly sports right now. I I don't disagree with what you're saying. The the volumes are mostly sports. And you know cuz we've seen from bet fair exchange and all these other previous exchanges in Europe X Y and Zed and she was like what are you talking about and I was like you know bet fair exchange I had to VPN and show her that this is an exchange that I've regularly used and
[57:32] loads of customers in the UK have regularly used for the last like 20 years and her mouth was like gaping. She could not believe that this is a platform that UK customers and European customers have been using for a long time. And not only that, it does $200 billion of volume a year. And so like there is also a slight American bubble around prediction markets right now which I think will burst over the next 18 to 24 months as reality hits about some of the the churn issues that I
[58:02] mentioned and the CAC in these markets is super super high and the the regulation in the US is complex but it's also very although it's much more mature in the eur Europe and the UK is is still hard to kind of get things done and payments are hard in the UK and Europe if you're a gambling company right So, so there's all this other stuff that is to be told um and probably to be told by someone much smarter than me. We we will definitely end on that note and uh sorry you had to hear my voice so much for that story. Uh stories we didn't have
[58:32] time for. NASDAQ invests $und00 million in Kraken company Paywood at a $21 billion valuation. More interesting raises. Uh consensus splits MetaMask from institutional and Ethereum infrastructure businesses. Jack Dorsey's block joins a rush for federal bank charters from the OC and as Sirill alluded to, Hunter Biden launched a memecoin called Laptop on base. I will not say anything more on that. Thanks so much for listening and for watching.
[59:03] Elise, where can people find out more about you? >> Uh shameless plug for the podcast that I co-host. Uh you can find the outside context wherever you get your podcast. It's about the future of technology and civilization. Or you can find me at Elise Susi Watts on LinkedIn. >> Sarah. Yeah, we're at latitude.xyz or on X. We're at RTP which stands for realtime payments. We'd love to hear from you. >> It's a good handle. Uh Matt, >> yeah, I need to find out how you got the RTP handle. Uh anyway, my handle's
[59:34] matchy Marcus and Modern Treasury is just Modern Treasury. And you can find me at pet barisha pet barisha on LinkedIn and Twitter. You can also subscribe to our prediction markets newsletter newsletter.predicted.co. And if you haven't already subscribe to tokenized anywhere you get your podcast, Apple, Spotify or YouTube. And finally, if you did enjoy the show and you want more, leave us a review. It definitely helps other people find the show. And that's all we have for now. We'll [music] be back next week with more
[60:05] tokenized content. >> [music]